Negeri Sembilan fire department assistant operations director Ahmad Mukhlis Mokhtar said the four men, aged 28 to 53 years, comprised two Telekom Malaysia (TM) employees and two security guards.

He said the helicopter carrying the rescued men landed at the SK Pantai field here at 3.15pm.

“They climbed the mountain last Saturday for work. However, due to bad weather, the victims lost contact and could not descend due to the trail, which had collapsed and was cluttered with fallen trees.

“The 12km trail was filled with debris. Therefore, the effort to rescue the victims using an Agusta AW189 helicopter from the department’s air unit was carried out at 3pm,” he told Bernama.

He explained that the department received a call at about 8.15am and efforts to rescue the stranded men by land were attempted as soon as the rescue party arrived at the location.

He said one of the victims sprained his leg while the rest were found without any injuries at an altitude of 1,193m.

Meanwhile, one of the security guards, Mohamad Haziq Jaffree, 28, described the experience of being stranded for five days on the mountain as a close shave from tragedy.

He said that after finishing their work, they had all gone down to the foot of the mountain before nightfall, but found the trail impassable because it had collapsed due to heavy rain.

He said their food supply was only enough for a week and he was thankful to be able to get off the mountain safely.

“We also had to rely on the generator set at the telecommunication transmission tower for lighting purposes following the torrential rain that hit the area.

“Thank you to the fire and rescue department for rescuing us. If they had not come, we would have run out of food,” he said.